Industry sources however put the Airbus compensation demand at about 800 million euros, said the newspaper.

None of the details has been confirmed by the companies involved or the German defence ministry, but industry sources said last week the down-scaling had long been on the cards and was not unexpected.

The Eurofighter consortium, Europe's largest defence programme, is a joint project of the Airbus Group, BAE Systems and Italian defence group Finmeccanica. It is in fierce competition with other fighter-jet makers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Dassault Aviation.

National news agency DPA last week quoted unnamed government sources as saying the German defence ministry would reduce its total order for Eurofighter jets from 180 to 143.

The reduction had already been decided in late 2011 by the then defence minister Thomas de Maziere, the DPA report said.